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Warning: Another BC ramble to follow!
Too much or too little metaphor...
"If you can just explain to me why Warren Gates posting #1480 of his short story does not apply here, I may be a true convert."
I had to read that thing three or four times. It made my head hurt.
Here's the thing... Forget everything you have read about silver bullets, etc. This is NOT A TECHNOLOGY PROBLEM.
This is a project management problem. Tool vendors who have a one-dimensional Year 2000 offering are clearly focused on this opportunity and when the "problem" is over so are they. They'll be immensely wealthy but are roman candles.
Humans are tool builders. When we have a problem, we build a tool to assist us in working it. This separates us from sub-humans. It is the application of the tool and the ability to adapt to changing opportunities that insures long-term success.
Some of the vendors mentioned on this thread have adapted their tools to assist in Year 2000 efforts. These tools have capabilities beyond Year 2000 as well. They assist in the mitigation of the problem, but don't actually solve it. The resolution comes in the form of properly testing the code they find and fix, and then properly staging this process back into production while simultaneously correcting the underlying "glue" that holds organizations together and that is the data.
The interchange of data between organizations, both internally and externally, has been likened to a "virus" which is passed around. While it doesn't actually fit the definition of a virus, the word is scary enough to get people's attention and draw a parallel for how connected we are as a society and our economic dependencies.
Tools for the most part are focused on particular segments of technology and a single tool cannot handle all of the languages, operating systems, networks, and databases that are in use today. The combinations of the above list only complicate this issue to the point where there will never be a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem.
Fear driven, frenzied activity over the next few years will sustain tool builders and Y2K specific service providers. You have to do your research and see what their long-term plans are. In the short term, everyone will be getting rich. Programmers are a finite quantity. This is a largely physical effort. Even with tools, you need people to run the tools and check the output. Supply and demand.
The magnitude of this problem is so vast (estimates of >$1 trillion of diverted attention, resources, and litigation) that anyone associated with it will make profit in the short-term. It is those organizations that are using this as an opportunity to establish new, and cement old, long-term relationships that will remain successful later. That is unless, the litigators take them for all they're worth when this is over.
I am starting to think the discussions about long-term investments are irrelevant with regards to Y2K. Do your research. Find the technologies that assist in the problem, and go for the short term. When you reach your threshold of risk or profit, get out.
For the "doom and gloomers" out there, and I count myself in that bunch.... We could be running head-on into what could be the worst series of multiple cascading failures we shall ever witness. Long-term won't matter then....
BC-out. |
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